


Greatest Hits

by ModernMyth



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernMyth/pseuds/ModernMyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nora cheats on Barney, and he's looking for a little comfort. Set during early Season 7.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greatest Hits

**Greatest Hits**

It was just past 2 AM when Robin heard insistent banging on her door. She sighed and rolled over in her bed. She'd been asleep for maybe thirty minutes when the knocking occurred. She shrugged it off and ignored it. If they kept it up, Ted would answer the door. The knocking persisted. Robin groaned.

"Dammit," she muttered under her breath, sitting up. She'd just remembered that Ted had gone home with some random skank that night and wasn't home. He'd been getting pretty lucky lately, seeing as he was a very marketable, successful bachelor at the moment.

Now she just had to figure out who the hell was knocking on her door at 2 AM. Like any proper gun nut, she grabbed her .99 millimeter as she went to answer the door, just in case.

As Robin opened the door, she said, "I have a gun, buddy, and I'm actually quite trigger happy."

On the other side of the door was Barney, tears shining in his eyes and scotch on his breath.

"Oh my god," Robin uttered. She put the gun down and ushered him inside.

Barney looked lost. "Ted here?"

Robin shook her head. "He's with some woman."

"Good for him," Barney said bitterly.

She led him to the couch, and they sat down.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you want a drink?"

He nodded.

She fixed a couple of scotches and passed one to him.

Barney visibly relaxed after the first sip. He cleared his throat.

"Nora cheated on me."

Robin choked on her drink. "Oh my god."

Barney nodded.

Robin continued, "Wow. I'm so sorry."

He took another sip of his scotch.

"She told me a couple hours ago. It's over."

He paused and took another sip of his scotch.

"More than anything else, I can't believe I actually tried for another relationship, just to have the same thing happen to me that happened with  _Shannon._ Never again. I don't know why I thought I needed to be in a relationship."

Robin could see the mask falling back into place. She could see the transformation back into the old Barney happening right before her eyes. She bit her lip.

"Barney…not every woman is going to cheat. Nora wasn't right for you. You worked  _so_  hard trying to please her. She was always so concerned about you cheating on her from the beginning, and she turned around and did it to you herself."

She shook her head in disbelief

Robin continued, "You were actually a good boyfriend. She's a bitch, and when I see her at work, I'm probably going to key her car."

This got a small chuckle out of Barney. "She takes the subway."

Robin frowned. "It's the thought that counts?"

"Guess so."

Robin placed a hand on Barney's thigh. "You're going to find the right woman for you, Barney. Nora just wasn't it."

She had to physically restrain herself from telling him that it could be her.

He shook his head. "I'm not. There is no _one_ right woman for me. I'm going back to my old ways. I was awesome back then."

Barney finished his scotch and went on quietly, "And back then nothing could hurt me."

Robin groaned. "Yes, it could. You think you couldn't get hurt when you were sleeping with half the state? That's bullshit. Barney, you have come so far. You have no idea how proud I have been of you lately. Sleeping with every woman in sight doesn't make you awesome.  _You_  make you awesome. Your personality makes you awesome. Not sleeping with every woman above a 6 in New York City. That's not awesome. You've grown up a lot. Relationship Barney can be awesome, too."

"Not if I can't keep anyone from cheating on me. Not if anyone I ever love can stay faithful. I can't believe this happened again. I guess this is just what I get for screwing over those women. I get cheated on every time I actually try to have a relationship."

That was the last straw for Robin.

"I didn't cheat on you."

"What?"

"I didn't cheat on you. So shut the fuck up about how everyone cheats on you, okay? Because I'm actually starting to take offense at this point. Not everyone you've ever been in a relationship with has cheated on you. We may have had a shitty run, but I'd like to think I still counted for something. I get that we don't talk about our romantic past or whatever the hell you want to call it, but  _jesus_  Barney, we used to be together. I never cheated on you, so can you at least stop saying that everyone you have ever…" She wouldn't let herself say  _loved_ , "cared about has cheated on you, please?"

Barney looked dumbfounded.

Robin spoke quietly, "I'm going to grab a couple more scotches."

She returned a couple minutes later with their drinks, much calmer than before.

They both drank in silence for a moment, then Barney turned to her and spoke up.

"I'm sorry."

Robin sighed. "I'm sorry, too. I don't know where that came from."

"No, I shouldn't have been going on like that. It's not like I don't care that we've dated. It's just…we don't talk about it. So I don't mention it. And I don't think about it because we've basically been acting like the relationship never happened since we broke up. We've talked about it maybe once since it ended. So I just…don't reference it. You don't either. I thought that was the way you wanted things to be."

She shrugged. "Usually it is. But then when you say things like what you said it just makes me feel like I never meant anything to you."

"You meant a lot to me, Robin. A hell of a lot. You still do. You're more than a bro to me, despite whatever stupid things I say. You're kind of my best friend. Don't tell Ted."

Robin nodded sadly and rested her head on Barney's shoulder.

"I'm sorry Nora cheated on you. You don't deserve it. You deserve a lot better than that."

Barney nodded and put an arm around Robin's shoulder. "I'm sorry I was such an ass."

She sighed and relaxed into his body. She supposed this was the best she was going to get. "It's okay."

They spent the next hour in that same position while staring aimlessly at whatever was on the TV until they both passed out on the couch.

 

*     *     *

 

The day after Robin's late night conversation with Barney, she broke up with Kevin.

She very much liked to think it was because the conversation had reminded her of her residual feelings for Barney and it's unfairness to Kevin and  _not_ because Barney was suddenly back on the market again.

But there was no denying it was a lucky coincidence.

_Timing_ , is what she kept reminding herself. They had the chemistry still. Robin was sure of it. It was just the timing they needed.

Days passed, and Barney thought about what Robin had said.

She was right, of course. She usually was, though you wouldn't see him admitting it out loud, and especially not to her.

Nora was never quite right for him. He'd always been so busy trying to please her and keep her happy that he never had the time to really look at himself and look at what he'd become. It wasn't natural. It wasn't  _him_.

He wasn't the kind of guy that went to a woman's workplace to serenade her. He wasn't the kind of guy that sent gift after cheesy gift that had nothing to really do with him and everything to do with cliche romantic gestures just to try and maintain a girlfriend he already  _had_.

That wasn't awesome. That was an unbalanced relationship.

Yeah, he guessed doing nice things for his girlfriend (he still occasionally scoffed at the word) wasn't such a bad thing. But he was finally starting to realize that the guy he was with Nora wasn't really him at all.

Nora had let a part of him out - the secret sap who really just wanted a special someone - but she'd never known the  _whole_  him. Not every part of him that created the  _real_  him.

He was pretty sure that there was only one person in his life who did know the real him, but he wasn't quite sure he was ready to think about that yet.

* * *

The days turned into weeks, and Robin and Barney found themselves hanging out with each other a lot.

Not just a lot - all the time.

In fact, it was a rarity that they weren't together. Robin had caught Ted giving the pair of them scrutinizing looks a few times when Barney was over hanging out with Robin for the umpteenth time in a row.

He approached her about it at breakfast a month after their mutual break-ups.

"Sooooooo, Robin. What's going on between you and Barney?"

Robin choked on his sip of coffee. "What?"

"You and Barney? What's going on there? You guys are hanging out  _all_  the time."

"Nothing's going on. We're just hanging out. We're friends. We do that. You hang out with Marshall all the time, and no one implies that there's something going on between you two."

"We both know that's not true! You and Lily imply that Marshall and I have latent homosexual feelings for each other all the time! But that's not the point. Marshall and I are best friends and don't have a romantic past. We've never slept together. _Well_. We've never had sex. You and Barney can't say the same thing about yourselves. Now tell me what's going on between you two."

Robin sighed and took a bite of her pancake.

"Honestly, I don't know. We're not together, if that's what you're asking."

There was something in her eyes that made Ted say what he did next.

It was more of a statement. "But you want to be."

Robin sighed. "No point in denying it, is there? Yeah, I want to be."

"It ended so badly last time," Ted pointed out. "What's changed?"

"It's hard to explain. We've both grown up, I guess. I mean, he's been with Nora. I've been with Kevin. We've had serious relationships. We've figured out what we want." She paused. "Well,  _I_ have anyway. I don't really know about Barney. I  _think_  he wants another serious relationship at some point, but I can't really get a straight answer out of him. And I don't want to push it because I'm afraid he'll figure out why I'm asking. And I'm not ready for that."

"Think you'll ever tell him?"

"I might."

Ted nodded. "Good luck, Scherbatsky."

She chuckled into her coffee. "Thanks, Ted."

* * *

Barney and Robin continued to spend most of their time together. Sometimes it was at MacLaren's with the gang. Sometimes it was at the cigar bar. Sometimes they went out to dinner. Sometimes it was just hanging out watching movies. But the majority of their spare time was spent together. If anyone other than Ted had taken notice of the fact, they hadn't said anything. But of course, Lily and Marshall had been pretty busy with the pregnancy.

Robin thought she had caught Barney giving her a certain look now and again - a look similar to the one he used to give her a few years ago. It was the same look he used to give her before they got together the first time that she did her best to ignore. She'd been seeing it a lot again lately and was praying it meant the same thing this time around.

It was one day, a little over a month after her conversation with Ted, when they were simply sitting around at her apartment that she got her answer.

They were watching a movie in relative silence. It had been on for maybe twenty minutes when Barney turned to her and spoke up.

"So are we going to do this or what?"

Robin furrowed her brows. "Huh? Do what?"

"We've basically been in a relationship for the past two months without the labels and the sex. We spend all our time together, and for some crazy reason, we both seem to be on board with commitment in our lives now. So I'm asking you…are we going to do this?"

It all sounded so casual coming from him. This thing that Robin had been thinking about 24/7, trying to figure out how to approach discussing it with Barney…he'd already been thinking it. And he just outright asked so casually.

She grinned.

"Yeah, I want to do this."

The smile on her face was so large it was almost painful.

They both knew it wouldn't be like last time. They wouldn't let it be. They were actually ready for it this time.

"Good," Barney said.

"Good," Robin echoed.

The celebration sex was legendary.


End file.
